TORONTO – Barbara Williams, Canwest Broadcasting’s executive vice-president, content, made official her new direct reports last week, pulling together the assets of both Global Television and the newly acquired Alliance Atlantis assets.
“What results from the combination of these two teams is that Canwest Broadcasting now has the top talent in every genre and on every platform – lifestyle, comedy, hard news, drama, documentary, magazine, and all the hybrids in between,” said Williams, in a release today. “I am so impressed with the expertise and the experience of each and every person, and am truly excited about the potential of this dynamic and passionate group of programmers.”
The following members of the content leadership team, as taken directly from the Canwest release, are:
– Steve Wyatt, senior vice-president, news and information “will lead news teams across the country, in all the local stations as well as the national news. In concert with the local news directors and the station general managers, he will oversee the daily production of all newscasts, as well as news specials, coast to coast. Steve will also direct the news division in the strategic development of news programming and resources, current affairs and the deployment of new technologies. Steve will report to Kathy Dore, president, Canwest Broadcasting on the overall editorial policy that guides the news division.”
– Phil Piazza, vice-president, content acquisitions “will lead this now centralized group, striving to create a focused acquisitions strategy that maximizes the buying strength of the new combined organization. This new team will acquire conventional, specialty and new media rights, while working closely with the channels’ strategic scheduling and content creation teams, in order to ensure all programming needs are fulfilled.”
– Karen Gelbart, senior vice-president, lifestyle content “will oversee the content strategy – including commissioning, acquiring, scheduling and budgeting of programming – for our lifestyle channels, a role she held at Alliance Atlantis for the past two years. Prior to that, Karen launched the Food Network in 2000 and Fine Living in 2004. She came to private broadcasting after a long and successful career at the CBC.”
– Christine Shipton, senior vice-president, drama and factual content “will oversee all development and commissioning of dramatic and factual programming for Canwest specialty channels and priority programming slates for Global and E! A seasoned executive, Christine has played a strong role in rebuilding the Canwest Canadian original slate for Global and E! these past two years and brings to this position a long career in program creation, including her work at Alliance, Alliance Atlantis and the CBC.”
– Daniel Eves, vice-president, strategic programming, specialty “will be responsible for the strategic programming direction and schedules for all drama and factual specialty networks. He will be working with the content creation and acquisition teams to create program schedules, and with marketing and sales to support and maximize them. Daniel has a strong background in specialty programming and a solid expertise in growing audiences, having played an instrumental role in the growth of Canwest specialty assets over the last two years. Prior to his time with Canwest, Daniel held a key role in programming the drama channels at Alliance Atlantis.”
– Zev Shalev, vice-president, strategic programming, E! “will oversee the E! schedule to maximise ratings and revenue in concert with the other content groups, sales and marketing, and will ensure programming alignment with the E! brand. Zev is also the senior executive producer of Canada’s most watched entertainment news, ET Canada and oversees ETC specials as well as the new E! weekend show. Zev has had a 16 year career in broadcasting, which started in radio and TV in South Africa and also includes working at CTV, Toronto 1 and the creation of U8TV.”
– Andrew Janik, vice-president, program operations “will be responsible for program finance. Working alongside the broadcasting finance team, Andrew and his group manage the program budgeting, amortization and forecasting of our specialty and conventional networks. His team will also track the digital media financials. Andrew is also responsible for program rights management through our S4M system, and as an initial project will be helping to coordinate the conversion and integration of our two current content management systems.”
– Greg Treffry, vice-president, partner development and content strategy “will be responsible for managing and expanding our relationships with all our network partners, including E!, Rogers, TVA, Scripps-Howard, BBC, National Geographic, Discovery and IFC. Greg will lead the development and implementation of activities that further leverage these relationships in order to better serve our customers. He will also manage our minority interests including Historia, Series +, Scream and One: Body, Mind and Spirit. In addition, Greg will serve as liaison between Content and other departments on the development of new strategies for maximizing the value of content on all platforms. Greg was previously responsible for managing Canwest’s specialty assets and broadcast digital initiatives.”
– Laura Tanner, senior vice-president, digital media “is charged with leading and delivering the overall digital media strategy which will extend our existing broadcast content onto the web and other digital platforms, as well as developing original web/mobile content. Digital media will also work closely with sales to create sellable product, and will lead syndication efforts, extending content onto external digital platforms. Laura has progressively led the interactive strategy for Alliance Atlantis over the past four years, and brings several prior years of senior marketing, general management and product development experience in the online space from both the agency side and financial services.”
